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continued the war. Like the Germans who believed that they had been stabbed in the back by
the Weimar politicians who negotiated for peace and had surrendered (see the Dolchstoss-
im-Rücken lie that was propagated by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers), some Afrikaners
believed (erroneously), on conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War, that they could have continued
to pursue the guerrilla war against the British with success, but had been betrayed by people
like Jan Smuts. 45
However, there is no evidence that prominent Boer leaders such as Louis Botha and Jan
Smuts had sold out or betrayed the Boers; indeed, in many respects, their carefully consid-
ered and diplomatic initiatives during the peace negotiations at Vereeniging and Pretoria,
saved the Afrikaner nation from complete destruction. In this regard, they were supported
by General Koos de la Rey, who was initially against the war, but who, when it did break
out, fought bravely until the bitter end. Together with other Boer leaders, Botha and Smuts
negotiated exceptionally generous conditions of surrender; for example, those who decided
to become British subjects would retain their personal freedom and property; Dutch could
still be used as a medium of instruction in Transvaal and Orange River Colony schools (and
if necessary also in the courts); the military administration would be replaced by a civilian
administration; representative government (followed by responsible government) would be
introduced as soon as possible; the British government would make £3 000 000 available for
the reconstruction of the two former Boer republics, and the granting of voting rights to black
people would only be discussed after responsible government (i.e. self-government) had been
instituted. The last-mentioned clause meant in effect that Afrikaners would decide the po-
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litical future of black and coloured South Africans, and in practice, once the Transvaal and
the Orange River Colony received self-government, they did not give blacks and coloureds
the right to vote. So, at the peace negotiations in Pretoria, the political and other interests
of black and coloured people were sacrificed to facilitate reconciliation between Boer and
Briton. Those traumatised by the Anglo-Boer War soon became the new traumatisers.

the traumatic consequences and Legacy of the war
The Anglo-Boer War cost the British taxpayer more than £ 200 million (about £ 6 000
million in terms of the value of money today [2008]). The financial cost to the Boers can-
not be determined. The British Army lost (according to official sources) 7 792 soldiers, who
were killed or died of wounds, while 14 658 died of disease or in accidents. A further 75 430
soldiers were sent home, either ill or wounded. The Boers lost 3 997 killed in battle, some
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150 died as a result of accidents, and approximately 2 000 died of disease or wounds. It is not
known how many Boers were wounded. As has been mentioned earlier, “collateral damage”
48
left approximately 28 000 white and at least 23 000 (but probably many more) black civil-
ians dead in the internment camps , and many thousands of children were left as traumatised
49
45 Ibid., p. 103.
46 Kestell and Van Velden, pp. 133-135.
47 Amery (ed.), 7, pp. 24-25.
48 T. van Rensburg (ed.), Vir vaderland, vryheid en reg: oorlogsherinneringe van Wilhelm Mangold 1899-1902
(Pretoria, 1988), p. 356 (notes 17-19).
49 See in general F. Pretorius (ed.), Scorched earth (Cape Town, 2001).